


Fool's Errand

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-25
Updated: 2008-05-25
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:45:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: "You should have died. Died rather than betray your friends." (Sirius Black, PA19)





	Fool's Errand

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

** ‘The bravery of idiots is bravery nonetheless.’ **

**             (Dr. Who – _The Poison Sky, Season 4, Episode 5)_ **

_ "You should have died. Died rather than betray your friends." _   
   
As an animal he cannot cover ground very quickly, but he gets into a steady rhythm, a sort of loping canter more suited to the equine, but over the years he’s learnt to settle into it. He doesn’t feel the movement in his four legs anymore, or the pulse that sounds more like a hum as it throbs through his body. The first time he managed it, he felt like a child, feeling his new limbs but unsure which parts of his brain would control them. It was like being in an airplane cockpit, trying to find which button started the engine and get into the right gear. The first time he had been aware of nothing but his body and its unwillingness to follow his instruction as James and Sirius laughed heartily at his expense. Now, sixteen years later _(fourteen years? Seventeen years? How long has he been remembering?),_ he is aware only of his human mind, separating and rejoining and turning like a sick propeller.  

It gives him time to think. As if he needs any more of that.

_ "What was there to be gained? Only innocent lives, Peter!"  
_

(No one has called him Peter in so long. So achingly long since someone looked at him and focused on him and called him by the name his parents borrowed from the grandfather who died as he was born. It hits him harder than he had expected it to.)

The sky is beginning to bleed into day and the lights rise behind him. 

_ Innocent lives or lives of innocence _ , the phrases meander through his mind. He had not had an innocent life, but he had once lived a life through his innocence. Those days when he was only a boy and he thought that friendship could turn things rosy and that if you were nice to people they’d be nice right back. And, of course, it was the self-same hypocrite who had crushed his innocence who now wielded the word like a weapon.

He’d never been quite sure what friendship was, but he’d never expected it to involve so much _shutting up_ or so much _pissing off_ or so much _leaving alone_. He’d never expected it to make him ache in places Sirius would call girly. 

Sirius and James and Remus never had to _think_ about how to be friends, they could just do it, like breathing, and that’s why they had time to think about homework and pranks and girls. But Peter was never as talented as they were, never had the instincts that they possessed – they knew when to speak and when to keep quiet, when to be serious and when to make jokes. They knew what was going _too far_ and the difference between funny and stupid. They could sense when you could comfort and when you needed to back off. They always seemed to say the right thing, they were clever and witty and _lucky,_ so bloody _lucky_. James was so fortunately _charming_ and Sirius so _humorous_ and Remus so _powerful_ , using silence as a weapon. When Peter tried to emulate them he was _ridiculous_ and _immature_ and _boring_. 

_ "You should have died."  _

Dying, he decides as a wave of long-buried hurt and anger scalds him, would have been a supremely childish thing to do. The James and Sirius of fifth year would have scorned him for it.

After all, why die? In a war neither side is right and neither side has the moral highground. A true Gryffindor keeps on fighting no matter what, no matter how, no matter who for. Only the weak take the cowardly way out. Death is surrender. A foolish dream; making a statement. Brave Gryffindors would never choose such a cheap way out. He was never a Hufflepuff – he had never believed in blind loyalty, but he was sorted a Gryffindor and in the end, that was how he knew he would die.

He kept fighting, picked a side and stuck to it. Not like Sirius, loyal to the Order of the Phoenix forever _(until Regulus died and then, who knew really?)_. Not like Remus, who’d kill anyone in Dumbledore’s name _(unless, of course, they were a lycanthrope in which case it was_ different _, wasn’t it?)_. Not even like perfect, _perfect_ James, who stood for equality at all costs _(after all, My Lily’s a Mudbl—Muggleborn, aren’t you darling?)_. He represented everything Gryffindor house stood for. 

They resented that. (They had to.)

_ "Died rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you." _

He’d never been quite sure what friendship was, but what he’d heard behind James Potter’s words sure as hell wasn’t it. Because _it was a war_ and _they never really liked you anyway_ and James was always so very good at _twisting the words_ so that _help us, keep us safe_ turned helplessly into _die for us_ which morphed smoothly into _dispensable,_ which finally landed in his mind as _no-one cares about you, Pete, so long as Sirius is safe._

If that was stood behind the word _friendship_ , he wasn’t sure what stood behind _betrayal._ Whatever the sentiment was, it wasn’t sincere.

_ "As we would have done for you." _

Friendship, it seems as he slows and prepares to Apparate, is a fool’s enterprise. And he’s sick of playing the fool.


End file.
